She
found out his pride in his ship, and practiced on it without remorse.
She drew him into talking of the fine qualities of the vessel, of the
great things the vessel had done in emergencies, as he had never in his
life talked yet to any living creature on shore. She found him out in
private seafaring anxieties and unutterable seafaring exultations which
he had kept a secret from his own mate. She watched his kindling face
with a delicious sense of triumph in adding fuel to the fire; she
trapped him into forgetting all considerations of time and place, and
striking as hearty a stroke on the rickety little lodging-house table,
in the fervor of his talk, as if his hand had descended on the
solid bulwark of his ship. His confusion at the discovery of his own
forgetfulness secretly delighted her; she could have cried with pleasure
when he penitently wondered what he could possibly have been thinking
of.
At other times she drew him from dwelling on the pleasures of his life,
and led him into talking of its perils--the perils of that jealous
mistress the sea, which had absorbed so much of his existence, which had
kept him so strangely innocent and ignorant of the world on shore.
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